The UK government has decided to withdraw from its conflict with Big Tech companies regarding access to private messaging.
This decision follows their proposed regulations meant to protect children from harmful online content, highlighting a potential clash between safety and privacy concerns.
The government's backtracking reflects concerns about potential impacts on end-to-end encryption and message privacy.
The UK government has been criticized for allegedly misrepresenting its stance on accessing encrypted messages, with critics arguing the proposed Online Safety Bill undermines encryption. This is proposing some secure messaging platforms to consider leaving the UK in order to preserve their security measures.
The government denies retreating in the encryption dispute, insisting it is dedicated to child safety. However, this has sparked debates on client-side scanning, privacy implications, data mining, end-to-end encryption, and backdoor access.
The government's plan to delay the scanning of messaging applications for harmful content until it becomes technically feasible is met with criticism. The potential impact of quantum computing on encryption, and vulnerabilities of different encryption methods, are also contentious topics amongst the public.
The author has recently developed a technology demonstration - commonly known as a 'tech demo' - for their web server library, described as entertaining yet functionally pointless.
The discussion encompasses various projects and ideas for website hosting and content sharing through URLs, including web server libraries, TinyURL, data URIs, gzip compression, base64 encoding, and zip files.
It touches on the pros and cons of these methods, addressing issues such as commercialization, security risks, file size limits, and liability for shared content.
Numerous techniques and examples illustrate the innovative potential of these methods, highlighting the shared insights from those in the comment section.
The open source software tool, jq 1.7, has been released, marking a revival of the project after a five-year pause and introduction of new admins and maintainers.
The 1.7 release brings a range of updates and enhancements including improved documentation, platform compatibility, changes to the Command Line Interface (CLI), and language enhancements.
The post acknowledges the contributors to the project and provides a link for a full review of changes made in this update via a changelog.
Microsoft has shared the results of its investigation into the Storm-0558 actor who used a consumer key to breach OWA and Outlook.com.
Findings reveal that a crash dump in April 2021 contained the signing key, later shifted to the debugging environment within the corporate network. Hereafter, a Microsoft engineer's corporate account was compromised by the actor to gain this key.
Microsoft also discovered a library error that let the mail system accept enterprise email requests signed with the consumer key, which the company has since rectified.
The text summarises security breaches and vulnerabilities at Microsoft, including compromised credentials, unauthorized access to sensitive data, mishandled key material, and potential weak spots in the authentication system.
The incidents have sparked debates surrounding Microsoft's security measures and structural issues, questioning the potential risks and consequences of cyber attacks.
Emphasizing the need for reinforced engineering systems, data security, log retention policies, and third-party investigators, the discussion criticizes Microsoft's management of these incidents.
The author developed a program named "Universal Server" in the Erlang language, demonstrating its versatility as it can be configured to become any specific server.
They extended this by creating a factorial server and combining these servers in a test program, further exemplifying Erlang's efficacy.
Utilizing the Planet Lab research network, the author implemented a gossip algorithm, allowing the network to transform into different servers, further illustrating the dynamic nature of the Erlang language and its utility in network applications.
Scientists have discovered a new species of rove beetle that mimics the physical appearance of termites to trick them into providing food.
The beetle resembles termites' body segments and features closely, enabling it to evade detection within termite nests.
Instead of consuming termite eggs or larvae, the beetle likely mimics their behavior, "begging" for food and thus securing itself a constant source of sustenance.
An Australian beetle has evolved to mimic termites for food theft, creating an ongoing evolutionary arms race between the two species.
Much of the conversation concerns the validity of evolutionary theories, including debates about the accuracy of "just-so stories" and speculation on the reasons behind mimicry.
The post includes discussion on gene theft, the effectiveness of the beetle's mimicry, and possibilities of other organisms evolving to mimic different species.
Albert Einstein advocates for socialism as a resolution to societal crises, emphasizing the importance of a supranational organization to mitigate potential conflict.
He denotes a marked distinction between the social behavior of humans and animals, arguing that our present economic system promotes self-interest and disparity.
Einstein suggests that socialism, combined with an education structure centered on social objectives, could address societal issues, although he does recognize its inherent challenges and emphasizes the significance of free and open discussion on these matters.
The discussion covers broad economic topics, namely socialism, capitalism, labor, and unemployment, touching on the challenges of implementing socialism and Marx's value theory.
Dialogue includes the interaction between labor and capital, the effect of unemployment on capitalism, and critiques of varying economic systems.
Additionally, the conversation acknowledges the inherent complexities within economic theories, the challenges of an effective value measurement system, and varying perspectives towards potential solutions.
The author points out a shift in business software models, transitioning from owning software to subscribing under the Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
They contend that while SaaS has been financially rewarding for software vendors, this trend appears to be subsiding with the enhancement of self-hosting technology and organizations' desire for greater control.
The author introduces "ONCE", a forthcoming series of software tools that can be owned indefinitely with a single payment, signifying a potential post-SaaS era and planned to be unveiled in late 2023.
There's an ongoing debate between subscription pricing models and one-time payments for software, spurred by concerns over difficult cancellations, cumulative costs, and continuous need for updates.
The announcement of a "Once" pricing model by 37signals incites mixed reactions, with some users appreciating the one-time payment option, while others express skepticism and criticize the language used in the announcement.
Discussions also feature concerns about long-term software support, compatibility, the limitations of the SaaS (Software as a Service) model, and the benefits of self-hosting.
Ephemeral P2P is a peer-to-peer content sharing platform; users register the hash of the content they want to share, and this content is retrieved and passed on by a server when others visit the corresponding link.
The platform, using Elixir and Phoenix framework, explores the potential of peer-to-peer transactions via browser websockets and the concept of content-addressed web.
This application does not sanitize shared HTML content; however, no private information is included in the exchange.
The discussion centers on a learning-based toy app for Elixir, Phoenix, and websockets, which brought up the potential of browsers' peer-to-peer capabilities for truly distributed networks.
Participants debated the merits and challenges of ephemeral peer-to-peer content sharing on the web, including customizable open-source clients, the potential of WebRTC, and the currently prevalent centralized platforms.
Ideas for server caching enhancement, provision for non-JS enabled clients to view pages, handling network glitches, and potential for using this technology in web hosting were also debated, highlighting both limitations and benefits.
The exa project is an open-source tool designed as a contemporary substitute for the "ls" command, offering additional features and improved defaults.
This tool employs color coding to differentiate file types and is well-informed about symlinks (symbolic links), extended attributes, and Git, a distributed version control system.
The exa tool is characterized by its small size, high speed, and compatibility with macOS and Linux systems; the post includes information on installation procedures and methods of developing and testing the tool using Vagrant, a tool for building and maintaining portable virtual software development environments.
The users are having a dialogue about various command-line utilities, primarily focusing on the "ls" command and its alternatives like "exa" and "lsd", debating their strengths and weaknesses.
The conversation also gravitates towards the significance of open-source developers in conveying their status, exploring the possibilities for forks and rewrites in software.
They also delve into the balance between stability and innovation in software development, illustrating the trade-offs involved.